In recent years, an intermittently-fixed-type optical fiber ribbon (hereinafter simply referred to as an intermittently-fixed optical fiber ribbon) has been proposed in which connecting portions for connecting adjacent optical fibers are intermittently disposed in the longitudinal direction of the optical fiber. The intermittently-fixed optical fiber ribbon has an advantage that optical fibers can be installed in an optical fiber cable at high density and the optical fibers can be easily and collectively fusion-spliced at the time of connection work. A method for manufacturing this type of intermittently-fixed optical fiber ribbon is disclosed in, for example, Patent Document 1 below.
In the manufacturing method of Patent Document 1, when delivering a plurality of optical fibers, an uncured UV curable resin serving as a connecting portion is intermittently applied to the optical fibers in the longitudinal direction. Then, the connecting portion is formed by applying UV light of an amount required for curing the UV curable resin until the optical fibers are converged in parallel.